


Roses Are Red (But You Look Blue)

by predilection



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Fluff, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Endless Waltz, Suspension Of Disbelief, though artistic liberties were taken with the concept
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/pseuds/predilection
Summary: Catherine remembers an old story her mother used to tell her. Sometimes when a person was in love and had trouble expressing themselves, nature found another way to make their feelings known.Or: Trowa starts coughing up rose petals.





	Roses Are Red (But You Look Blue)

**Author's Note:**

> I love this pairing and I love Catherine, and I hope I did them justice with this story!
> 
> [Hanahaki](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Hanahaki_Disease), for reference, is a fictional disease that involves people coughing up flower petals when they're in love.

Catherine remembers an old story her mother used to tell her about her maternal grandfather. One day, when he was in his twenties, he began to cough up red rose petals. There was a legend, her mother explained, that sometimes when a person was in love and had trouble expressing themselves, nature found another way to make their feelings known.

It was a childhood bed time story, one with a simple, child-like resolution: the kiss of requited love made the condition go away and that was how her grandfather and grandmother found their happy ending.

Catherine doesn't think much about this story, not until she's in her early twenties and Trowa starts coughing during dinner. He turns away from the table and covers his mouth with his hand. It worries her, because she's never seen him cough. She's never even seen him get sick.

He seems to choke on something, gag on it, and when he pulls his hand away from his mouth, he looks absolutely bewildered by the red rose petal resting in his palm.

*

Trowa doesn't quite believe her when she explains the condition to him, but it's hard to deny something like a flower petal that came out of your own chest.

Still, Trowa tries. He practices, performs and helps with the chores. He goes about his life like there isn't anything wrong, but she wakes up in their small shared trailer to the sounds of him coughing -- choking on rose petals -- in the middle of the night, and she's there when he excuses himself during practice. She lets it go, hoping his stubbornness will wear out and he'll do something about it, but the situation reaches a breaking point when it happens during a show.

She's throwing a knife at him, her actions careful and precise, when he moves, just slightly like he's holding in a cough. It's not enough of a movement to put him in danger, but it's enough for her to snap.

"You can't let this continue!" she yells at him later, when they're back in the privacy of their trailer and he's finished coughing up three rose petals this time. "It won't stop on its own! It will only get worse!"

Trowa merely nods at her in that frustratingly stoic way of his.

"Whoever it is, you need to tell them so they can help you!"

At this, he looks away, eyes focusing on a point on the far wall, and Catherine knows that, unfortunately, this conversation is far from over.

*

Trowa gets worse. He's coughing up more petals more often, but thankfully, there have been no other incidents during their shows.

"Is it that boy with the hard eyes?" she asks, desperate for answers -- for some way to help him. "The one you took care of for a month? The one who made you laugh?"

Trowa doesn't answer, and this is one of the few times she hates how little she knows about his other life. She hasn't met many of his friends. 

"Is it the boy who came to take you away? The one with the blond hair?" she tries again, but Trowa is silent. He simply grabs a broom from where it's resting against the wall and, infuriatingly, begins to sweep their trailer.

*

She wakes to the sound of coughing, but it's the sound of Trowa's agonized groan that has her jumping out of bed and into his room.

He's on his knees on the floor, his hand at his throat, his eyes wide like he can't breathe, and he all but pukes out a small pile of petals.

She kneels next to him and rubs his back. She can't take much more of this -- of watching Trowa torture himself for someone she doesn't know. She's thought about that a lot in the past few weeks -- about why Trowa is so reluctant to do anything -- and there's only one answer she can think of.

When he starts breathing normally again, she asks him gently, "Is it unrequited?"

He hesitates before he nods, the action small and vulnerable.

She pulls him into a hug, her heart breaking for him, and holds him against her chest for a long time.

*

A week later, the coughing is almost constant. It gets to the point where Trowa comes down with a fever. He lies in bed, his skin clammy as coughs rack his body.

Catherine can't bare it, and even if it's unrequited -- even if Trowa is sure there's no chance -- she needs to try.

"Who is it?" she begs him, softly, sitting at his bedside. "Please tell me. Please."

He relents on the third day. "Quatre." The name comes out as barely a whisper, and he's so feverish that she wonders if he's even aware he's saying it. 

*

She has no idea who Quatre is -- if it's one of the friends she met or someone else -- and Trowa is tight-lipped when she asks him outright.

She looks for the name in the colony directory both as a first name and as a surname but has little luck. The circus manager finds her bent over their terminal and she asks him, desperate now, if he's heard of or seen anyone with that name, wondering if, perhaps, he's encountered one of Trowa's friends that she hasn't.

The circus manager rubs at his chin. He takes her question seriously without questioning her on why she's asking, reminding her why she respects him so much. "The only Quatre I've heard of is the young head of the Winner Corporation," he offers finally.

She starts combing through her resources for anything about the Winner Corporation. The company is large and going through changes, so she finds multiple articles in the business section of the colony papers. It's as she's reviewing these that she finds a particular article from three weeks ago that has an accompanying photograph. In it is a familiar face wearing a hard-hat, and the caption identifies him as "Quatre Raberba Winner".

This was the boy who came for Trowa when his memories were missing -- the one who started crying, relieved, at the sight of him. This was also the boy who claimed he was responsible for Trowa's confused mental state in the first place -- the one who apologized to her for hurting him. She remembers how Trowa changed after he came -- how he threw away the comfort and peace he had found to follow the boy into battle.

He's the one Trowa's in love with.

She curses under her breath.

*

Quatre is on L4 for a business conference, and though she has no idea how she's supposed to even get close to him, let alone speak to him, she gets on a shuttle the next morning.

It's the sight of Trowa, curled up in bed, sick and in pain, that fuels her resolve, and she keeps that image in her mind as she marches up to the conference doors.

A security guard stops her and asks her for her pass. She doesn't have one, but she tells the guard she's here to see Quatre and that he will see her if he knows she's there. The guard is unimpressed, but a very tall man with a well-trimmed beard comes up behind the guard and asks her for her name. She gives it and adds, "Please tell him it's about Trowa. I know he'll speak to me."

The tall man studies her face for a moment, and then tells the security guard that Quatre will see her. Security lets her through and the tall man leads her to a room with expensive looking furniture. The man's expression is kind when he explains, "Quatre is in a meeting at the moment, but I'll arrange for him to see you when it finishes."

She doesn't thank the man, not when she's still unsure of the truthfulness of his claim. She's no stranger to the treachery and violence of the colonies, after all. She holds her purse tighter against her side, her knives a comforting weight inside it.

Thankfully, the man was speaking the truth. The young heir to the Winner family joins her in the room not an hour later. To her surprise, he smiles at her and offers her tea.

She doesn't take it. "Trowa needs your help," she says instead.

The smile he's wearing slips off his face, and it's replaced with a concern so intense that he surprises her for a second time. "What's wrong?"

"He's sick," she says and hesitates. It isn't her place to reveal Trowa's secrets, but she doesn't really have a choice in the matter. "And he needs you."

Quatre walks up to her and takes her hands in his own. While his fingers are callused, his touch is gentle. "I'll do anything," he promises.

*

She doesn't quite believe him, so she tells him only that Trowa requires his presence. It isn't the whole truth, but he leaves the conference immediately, and asks the tall man -- Rashid, apparently -- to ready his private shuttle. 

It's after they're on aboard and on their way -- after she sees first-hand how he was willing to drop everything for her brother -- that she tells him about the flower petals.

He's quiet and attentive as she speaks, and he's quiet when she confesses what Trowa never has.

She tells him everything, including why Trowa didn't bother seeking him out on his own.

Quatre covers his face with his hands afterwards, and holds them there, his palms against his eyes. He sucks in a deep breath and then another, his body shaking with it. She thinks he might be angry, but when he pulls his hands away, his face is a mess of tears.

She marvels at that -- at his naked sincerity. His expression is similar to the one he wore the first time they met when he had cried over finding Trowa. She wonders how Trowa could ever think this boy didn't love him back. 

It's so obvious how he feels. He doesn't even bother to hide it.

*

It's late when Catherine lets Quatre into their trailer.

Trowa is lying on the bed, and even from the door it's obvious that he's pale and that his breathing is labored.

"Trowa," Quatre gasps, and he runs to Trowa, kneeling on the floor at his bedside. Without hesitation, he brushes back the hair that's stuck to Trowa's forehead, the gesture kind and loving.

Trowa startles awake at the touch, and his wide eyes meet Quatre's for only a moment before he's coughing, rolling further onto his side as the coughs send spasms through his body.

Quatre's hand finds his shoulder and squeezes, holding him through it.

"Quatre?" Trowa asks blearily when the coughing finally subsides. 

"Catherine brought me," he explains.

Trowa turns his head so he can glare at her where she's standing by the door, but it's the weakest glare she's ever seen from him. She crosses her arms across her chest and glares back, regretting nothing. Especially since, as far as she's concerned, this whole thing could've been avoided. Even now, Quatre is looking at Trowa with a warm affection that's so bright and earnest that she has no idea how Trowa can miss it. 

Quatre slides the hand he still has on Trowa's shoulder up his neck until it's resting against Trowa's cheek. Trowa looks up at him, and Catherine knows that, just like that, her presence has been forgotten.

"You should have told me," Quatre says softly.

Trowa just stares at him like he can't believe Quatre is there and maybe like he's scared of what Quatre now knows, but that doesn't deter Quatre. He bends down and kisses Trowa on the lips.

Trowa doesn't move at first as Quatre kisses him soundly. He looks like he's in shock, his eyebrows raised in a way that's almost comical on him, but then his expression softens, his body relaxing as he closes his eyes and kisses Quatre back. One of his hands comes up to Quatre's neck, his fingers splaying against his skin and Quatre makes a pleased yet sweet sound against Trowa's mouth.

Catherine turns on her heel and leaves them to it, relieved that rose petals will stop choking Trowa now, and also unexpectedly glad that as long as Trowa doesn't do something ill-advised, he'll likely get something wonderful out of this ordeal.

*

She checks on them later. They're both fast asleep, facing each other like parenthesis on the bed, though Trowa is under the covers and Quatre is lying on top of them at his side. Trowa's pallor has returned to normal and he looks more at ease than he did even before this whole flower petal business started.

What makes her pause, though, is the way Trowa's arm is reaching out, his fingers resting against the side of Quatre face like touching him carefully and intimately was the last thing he did before sleep overtook him.

The sight makes her smile and, for once, she knows her brother will be alright.


End file.
